Thunderbolts*: finally, a fresh and engaging premise for the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has drifted since Avengers Endgame (2019), which tied up plotlines developed over a decade. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – one of the series’ biggest hits – jokes about the underperformance of subsequent MCU projects. Proposed replacements for major characters like Captain America and Black Panther haven’t exactly been embraced.

Marvel Comics had a similar wobble in the 1990s, when they launched the instantly-dated ‘Heroes Reborn’ reboot. The sole plus of that debacle was Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley’s ingenious Thunderbolts, in which new heroes standing in for the vanished Avengers turn out to be veteran villains adopting fake identities as a long con. None of the original ‘bolts feature in this film, but Jake Schreier (known for 2012’s Robot & Frank and the 2023 Netflix series Beef) takes a related approach in his Thunderbolts* (the asterisk is important). 

Previously set-up misfits from disparate projects (mostly, Black Widow, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) are thrown together and gain new depth as expendable foul-ups are forced to act as – then perhaps become – a superhero team.

Given that Captain America Brave New World (2025) couldn’t sell its new Cap and Hulk to audiences, it’s self-reflective that the Thunderbolts* macguffin is a disastrous project to create a superhero stereotype (inspired by Paul Jemas and Jae Lee’s self-aware Sentry miniseries for Marvel Comics). 

A serum turns random test subject Bob Reynolds (Lewis Pullman) into a Superman-level ‘Golden Guardian of Good’ but his low self-esteem manifests as an all-devouring void. This striking monster adds real menace to the latter stages of the film, but also encourages a murky visual style which makes this fairly drab for a comic book picture. Instead of spectacle, Schreier goes for character stuff, building the team (and film) around Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, sister of the late Black Widow, who has an eternal look of having been slapped by life but holding back tears. It’s a rare Marvel movie which climaxes – among familiar New York rubble – with a superhero/villain group hug.

Yelena’s core of pain is shared by other also-rans, with Wyatt Russell especially good as John Walker, a bitter substitute Captain America whose shield gets bent. A satirical edge, relating to contemporary politics and the superhero genre, is brought by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s political higher-up, who suggests what would happen if her character from Veep replaced Nick Fury as the Avengers’ prime assembler. Examining grubby, battered, disappointed lives lived in the shadow of thunder gods and patriotic avengers is a fresh, engaging premise for the MCU, giving a kick to an end-credits reveal about the asterisk.

► Thunderbolts is in UK cinemas now.